Michael Ray-Von & Leonel Salguero

End of residency exhibition

January 17 – February 2, 2019

There seems to be a limit to the crispness of the illusory vision –it sort of glimmers. A hallucination can only be experienced indirectly, as from the corner of one’s eye. And this supports a suspicion that the object of hallucination derives from a transcendent field (though a discerning observer will recall evidence to the contrary).

I believe that object is rather a shadow of a potential object, the latter being the most pure substance of cognitive inference, and our vehicle to the future and to the past.

Hallucination, or other perceptual deception, allows the perceiver familiarity with speculative reality, if for only a brief moment. One gains indirect access to a stratum of potentiality, as well as an awareness for potency as the bridge to, and from, actualization.

The works present the impression of a narrative without assembling that narrative from any specific reality (or imaginary) and without allowing that narrative to ever really resolve.

It has been said that paintings are like windows, but in the case of these works I’d say they act somewhat more like portals, insofar as a mirror is a portal, complete with all its warps and distortions.

– Michael Ray-Von

Image credit : PJ Rountree